Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. Sometimes announcements here didn’t meet the bar to become a news story, sometimes they may have slipped through the cracks, or they came late and we haven’t had a chance to cover.
At The Defiant we cover the most important DeFi-related news and developments but we know many of you are hunting for projects before they are fully developed and before they are newsworthy. Our goal with this installment of the newsletter is to help you find them. Look at this as the starting point to DYOR.
We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.
Keep in mind these have been unedited. With that—here we go!
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Inbox Dump!
✉️ The Graph Network is Adding Support for Polygon!
The Graph is adding support for Polygon on The Graph Network. After relying on The Graph’s hosted service for years, Polygon users will soon be able to rely on fully decentralized APIs to power their decentralized applications (dApps).
✉️ Solana AMM Orca Launches Fiat-to-Crypto Onramp with Stripe
As the Solana ecosystem comes back from the aftershocks of the FTX liquidity earthquake, one of its leading automated market makers (AMM), Orca, announced a new integration.
✉️ Walmart’s Majority-Owned Flipkart and Polygon Companies enter into a strategic partnership
Bengaluru, December 2 – Flipkart, India’s e-commerce marketplace, announced a partnership with Polygon Companies, to set up a Blockchain-Commerce Centre of Excellence (CoE) to work on research and development of commerce use cases in India to accelerate the adoption of Web3.
✉️ Gitcoin <> UNICEF: A powerful Quadratic Funding collaboration pilot
Between Dec. 9 – 16, 2022, Gitcoin will facilitate a Quadratic Funding grants round for a select group of 10 impact-focused, innovative projects from around the world—including Nepal, Kenya, Argentina, Brazil, and the Philippines.
✉️ THETA Announces A Partnership With World Of Women
The Theta team announced via a Medium post on Wednesday that it has partnered with the World of Women (WoW) NFT collection to stream its first-ever WoW Gala in Miami, during Miami Art Week.
✉️ Web3 Working Group launches with $2M funding – nonprofit to support adoption of web3 infrastructure
California, The Web3 Working Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, launched with $2 million from donors and partners like Arweave, The Graph, Livepeer, and Akash to educate the public and regulators about the functionality and utility of web3 infrastructure.
✉️ gmoney REVEALS IDENTITY AS HE LAUNCHES 9DCC ITERATION-02 AT ART BASEL MIAMI
Gmoney has been a pillar of the NFT community for years. Hiding behind a pseudonym and a CryptoPunk facade, he is a key proponent of NFT technology and mainstream adoption, providing insight to the wider NFT community, and gaining the respect of futurists and creative directors.
✉️ Hex Trust Expands NFT Custody Services to Include Algorand NFTs
1 Dec, 2022 – Digital asset custodian Hex Trust has expanded its institutional-grade custody services for NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to include assets created on the Algorand blockchain using Algorand Standard Assets (ASAs).
✉️ TurboTax launches product and services for crypto investors
SAN DIEGO – TurboTax, from Intuit, the global financial platform that also makes QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp, announced new updates for crypto investors: TurboTax Live and TurboTax Online.
✉️ SPACE Launches Phygitals to Help Retailers Build Strong Communities in the Metaverse
[November 29th, Switzerland] – SPACE, a commerce virtual world, has launched the ability to create phygitals on its platform. Now, any shop owner, retailer, influencer, or creator can automatically create a digital representation of a physical item as an NFT: The SPACE Phygital NFT.
✉️ Punk Apestrong Releases Bored Ape NFT Coloring & Activity Book for Charity
L.A., Nov. 29, Digital collectibles have seen explosive growth over the past year. Draper Goren Holm official mascot, Punk Apestrong, a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT that has been brought to life through the creative ideas of the Blockchain and Booze community, published his first-ever book.
✉️ Game7 Launches $100M Grants Program to Accelerate Web3 Gaming
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 28, Game7– a Web3 gaming DAO supported by the BitDAO and Forte ecosystems–launches a US$100M grants program to accelerate Web3 gaming.
✉️ Router to bring Cross-Chain dApps to the Fore at ETHIndia
[SINGAPORE, November 28] Router Protocol – an infrastructure layer enabling communication between blockchains, announced it will be testing new cross-chain capabilities to spotlight interoperability at ETHIndia, Asia’s biggest Ethereum hackathon.
✉️ BVNK acquires UK licensed E-Money Institution to accelerate expansion
London: 28 November — BVNK, the next-generation payments platform for global businesses, today announces it has acquired UK fintech, System Pay Services Limited (SPS Ltd), to accelerate expansion.
✉️ Eddid Financial Announces Investment in Crypto Investment Platform, Q9 Capital
HONG KONG – 28 November – Eddid Financial announces its cooperation and investment in Q9 Capital, a transformational crypto investment platform delivering cutting-edge solutions and capabilities to crypto and TradFi firms.
Funding
đź’° Market Maker Keyrock Raises $72M Amid FTX Contagion
Digital-asset market maker Keyrock has raised $72 million in a Series B funding round from a group of investors that included Ripple and SIX FinTech Ventures, and Middlegame Ventures.
đź’° Web3 developer platform Fleek raises $25M led by Polychain Capital
Web3 developer Fleek has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Polychain Capital. Additional investors include Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Protocol Labs, Arweave, North Island Ventures, Distributed Global, The LAO, and Argonautic Ventures.
đź’° Announcing our $17M Series A to expand our staking offering
This is led by Illuminate Financial, with participation from GSR, Kraken Ventures, Consensys, Leadblock Partners, Sparkle Ventures, XBTO, and previous investors 3KVC, Alven, Blue Yard, and SV Angel among others.
đź’° A16z Leads $15M Round for Game Studio Roboto Games
Other participants in the round included Ancient8, Animoca Brands, Gumi Cryptos Capital, Harrison Metal Capital, Makers Fund, Merit Circle, Transcend, and a number of angel investors.
đź’° Dash 2 Trade ICO Raises $7 Million: Presale Ending Soon
The project raised over $7 million in a little over a month and is quickly becoming one of the most popular investments in the crypto environment.
đź’° Framework Ventures and Chapter One back web3 software solution Daylight
Daylight, a software solution for aggregating web3 perks, raised $3 million in a seed round co-led by Framework Ventures and Chapter One. Other backers in the round include 6th Man Ventures, Spice Capital, OpenSea, as well as several angel investors.
💰 Animoca and GameFi Ventures Lead Wanderers’ $2 Million Seed Funding Round
Animoca Brands and GameFi reportedly made the largest contributions to the startup’s first official funding round.
💰 HitBox Games raises $1.6M for hack’n’slash Web3 game Swords of Blood
The backing for the Sheridan, Wyoming-based HitBox Games came from Fundamental Labs, Gate io Labs, Master Ventures and others. Swords of Blood will feature triple-A quality graphics, animation and lore, the company said.
đź’° Animoca Brands Unveils $2B Metaverse Fund
Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming giant Animoca Brands is all set to roll out a massive $2 billion fund, dubbed “Animoca Capital,” to invest in metaverse businesses, according to co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu.